of homelessness and hope. of chaos and joy.

I just feel like I'm at a point in my life where there are no adequate words to describe what is happening around me, to convey what has been going on inside of me. So I will attempt to do that today, but be warned, I feel it will be a ludicrously insufficient description.

I still feel in a bit of a limbo between two continents, two frames of mind, two purposes in life. I still love Africa and missions desperately, and want to invest more of my life and time there... soon. I am waiting on some more info right now for a possible trip back there. But in the meantime, God is doing amazing things in me and around me here, and I want to make sure I don't miss out on that. I want to live fully here in this moment. I absolutely believe it's okay to look forward to things and be excited about them. But I don't want to live always for the next thing, and miss out on what's happening right now. God has things to teach me and show me and use me in, in the present.

I'll try to summarize what's been going on in my life lately. It mostly centers on church, because it's something that's been a source of conflict and confusion and frustration lately. Basically since I've gotten back from Namibia in November I have struggled with the church I go to, CCV, and just the American mindset/lifestyle in general. I could talk about this for a long time. (I'd encourage you to read a post I wrote in Namibia called "Tiptoeing Towards Death" - scroll down the page.) If you have talked to me in the last 6 months, you know what I mean. I just felt so frustrated at how people were living, how extravagant and wasteful and unappreciative people seemed to be. Among other things. I got back to CCV and was kind of like, "What am I doing here? This feels weird, and it used to not be like this." But I left almost immediately for Chile so I didn't get time here to process things before leaving again.

When I got back from Chile I still felt like I was overwhelmed by the culture and mentality of things here, and I especially felt odd at church and couldn't fully explain why. I would feel on and off about things. Some weeks I went to church or to volunteer at junior high and would feel fine. Other times I couldn't even walk inside of the building, and really had little words to try to explain why. At one point maybe 5 or 6 weeks ago it got intense enough that I left junior high early one night and just needed to take a break. It was just too hard to be there, I felt so out of place. A lot of this barely makes sense in my head, so hopefully you can get some sense of where I'm coming from. I decided to take a break from going to church at all so I could wrestle with all of this and come to some sort of a conclusion.

About a week later, I was at Starbucks (shocking, I know) talking to a few friends about my struggle with church and all that had been going on with me. While talking to them, a woman who was sitting with her husband in the next table over interrupted us and asked if we were having a Bible study. We started talking and she ended up telling us about her church -- how much she loved it, how close their community was, how they did outreach and wanted to take Jesus out into the world instead of expecting people to come to church to hear about Him. Everything she said sounded a lot like what I was looking for, including the fact that it was small, which I knew was a direction I wanted to head in.

Well, Amber (the woman from Starbucks) was so nice and encouraging and friendly that I decided, why not check it out. So 2 weekends ago I went to their church. It's called Life Connection and it's on I-17 and Indian School (it's not as far as it sounds). Well, I really loved it. The people were very genuine and real. I loved what the pastor had to say and just got a very good vibe (I hesitate saying vibe but that's the best way to describe it). The pastor had a sweet mix of humor, sound doctrine, and was just very REAL... I know I keep using that word, but I just feel it's the easiest way to say it. So, I went back again last weekend, and it was even better, and I got to meet a few new people, really awesome people. That day some guys got up and announced that on Saturday (today) they were going to meet and take food and water to homeless people in the city. It was just so cool when they said that, because the kind of church I'm looking for would do those kinds of things all the time. So I got really excited about that!

That was what happened today. It was just one of those incredible experiences that while you're doing it, it doesn't impact you quite as much as when you look back on it and try to begin to grasp what just happened. I met up at the church with a group of like 15 people, most of whom I'd never met. I love now that I completely did something out of character for me, and delved into something that I didn't know much about. I only felt compelled to do this, and passionate about it as well. So I met a whole host of new and sweet people today and I am really pumped about that. God is very good. So what we were originally supposed to do was go down to this park by North Mountain and hand out food there. Well, we went there, only every homeless person there seemed to already have food. Which is amazing, I'm so glad they would have eaten anyway today, but we were thinking, what now?! And I think this is where having a small group came in handy. We really wanted to be able to give out all the food we had (about 50 sandwiches, fruit, and water). And it's like, if we drive around enough, we'll definitely find people who need food. For crying out loud. I really enjoyed it because that's exactly what this group wanted to do - just drive until we found people. Sweet.

So we ended up going downtown (like 15th Ave & Jefferson-ish) and parking in a random neighborhood, and just started giving out food. We had a lot of people come and find us. Some we sought out. Some came, got their food, and left, but some stayed around and talked. We then migrated about a mile away and hung out by a community center/shelter and there were just dozens of people who needed food. And they were so grateful. It was really cool to just be a part of that, a part of bringing hope and love and compassion to this area that seems to be so neglected. Almost everyone was very kind and thankful for the food and, also, I think to have people that were willing to engage with them.

There is something extremely powerful in purposely connecting and spending time with people who are outcasted, forgotten, and avoided by society in general. If you want to have an experience with God and His people, go out and find someone who fits into that category in some way and spend some time investing in them. I think you'll be amazed at what happens. They're usually incredibly interesting and have sweet stories to tell... and when you are genuine about your concern and care for them, it's apparent to them and just is such a simple way of reaffirming God's love for them.

We walked around for a bit after we'd run out of food, which I'm glad about. We found an old abandoned building with these plaques on the side of it. They were focused on having hope even though it feels like this place has no trace of God or goodness in it. One posterboard asked people to write their prayer requests so they could be prayed for. It was filled up, with people asking for help with finding a job, overcoming an alcohol addiction, or having family problems. You name it. We also heard singing at some point and could not figure out where it was coming from. We ended up following the voice and it led us to this tiny church building. We could hear the singing and preaching from the street because there was a megaphone attached to the outside of the building. So we walked inside, about 10 of us white folks (mostly younger girls), to a room full of black people who were praising God with everything they had. There was just a drum and a lady speaking, but she was filled with the Spirit in a way that's very difficult to describe, and that leaves you in awe.

I think we forget to be passionate. About God, about the gospel, about our interactions with each other, just about life in general. We have these very specific routines and ways of doing things and we've done them for so long, we forget anything else was ever part of our lives. And there can be good in routine and in getting used to some things -- but not when our lives become stagnant, and we've overstayed our welcome at a place that God is done using us at. This is what I felt has been going on in my life lately. I felt stale, like I wasn't being used, and at times, not willing to be used. But now that I've been going to this new church and just meeting all kinds of new people and exposing myself to new things... different things... I feel re-energized and I am so ready to see what is next and what crazy things God is going to do.

The experience today was much needed and I am so in awe of God orchestrating something like this. He's such a great and powerful and gracious God. I wish I could convey to you the joy I felt driving back home after my experience today. I wish I could impart a small part of the peace I felt, of the passion inside of me. These words have been lacking. But if you walk away with one thing, let it be a joy in knowing that He is praiseworthy, sufficient, sovereign, and utterly worthy of our continuous devotion to Him and the people He loves and died for.